With the wide spread acceptance of the Internet as a ubiquitous, interactive communication and interaction platform, on-line (or electronic) commerce conducted over the Internet has become commonplace in a variety of business environments. On-line commerce is traditionally categorized as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and even business-to-employee (B2E) commerce. In the B2B environment, a number of online exchanges or marketplaces (e.g., vertical exchanges) have been established with a view to facilitating electronic commerce between parties, for example, within a vertical supply chain. Such B2B exchanges typically provide a number of tools for facilitating commerce, such as aggregated and near real-time inventory information, Requests for Quotation (RFQ) capabilities and auctions.
In the B2C and C2C environments, a number of marketplace exchanges and transaction facilities have proved popular. A leading electronic transaction facility (or market place) is operated by eBay, Incorporated. Electronic marketplaces are also provided by Yahoo! Incorporated and Amazon.com. Further, a number of on-line services offer on-line classifieds, such as the Yahoo! Classifieds service offered by Yahoo! Incorporated.
A number of the on-line marketplaces are utilized by merchants as an important, if not a primary, distribution channel for products. Such so-called “power users” typically list a large number of items to be sold or auctioned each day. Further, various retailers and merchants also utilize free, or low-cost, classified advertisement services offered on the Internet, such as Yahoo! Classifieds. For example, a used-car sales operation may, at any time, place a number of such classified advertisements via an on-line classified advertisement service. It would be helpful to provide merchants with a way to create and propagate multiple items to a network-based marketplace.